This post on Insta by GoldMountain Coffee shows you very clearly the road a coffee bean takes from being planted to harvest, sorting, washing and so on. Very good pictures!
Tag: beans
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/05/29/de-energie-van-een-kop-koffie-a4001234
Dutch newspaper NRC did an investigation into the total energy it takes to produce a cup of coffee. By total they mean the LCA, Lifecycle Assessment, from growing to harvest to transport and roasting to you making your cup.
You will be surprised to learn what the most energy efficient type of coffee is. I.e. the least amount of energy required to make one cup of coffee…
Koffietje.nl already had the great idea to list as many local coffee roasters in the Netherlands with a webshop as possible, so that everyone who’s working at home #stayhome due to Corona crisis can enjoy the best coffee possible. Excellent!
Of course this leaves out those roasters who don’t have a shop (yet)…
Thankfully, Misterbarish.nl already has an extensive list of coffee roasters in the Netherlands (and a list for Belgium). Yay! With these two lists together there is nothing stopping you from ordering fresh roasted coffee beans that suit your taste to brew at home.
Als je thuiswerkt en verse koffiebonen nodig hebt, check dan deze megapost met links naar alle branders in Nederland, die bekend zijn, met een webshop om bonen te bestellen! ☕🌱
Koffietje.nl worstelde met dezelfde gedachten als ik:
Hoe kom ik aan lekkere, goede, verse koffiebonen voor m’n koffie als ik het huis niet meer uit mag?
Bezorgen natuurlijk, maar door wie? Wie brandt nog dagelijks koffiebonen en heeft een webshop waar ik die kan bestellen zodat ze bij mij thuis bezorgd kunnen worden? Want ik wil geen oude bonen! 😀
Nou, het is een megapost geworden op Facebook en de lijst groeit nog steeds. Gelukkig hebben ze de lijst met koffiebranders in Nederland met een webshop ook op hun website gezet, daar is hij wat overzichtelijker! #stillroasting
En als jij zelf nog goede suggesties hebt, geef ze vooral door aan koffietje op facebook! Daar hebben we allemaal wat aan!
PS: Ben je een koffiebrander maar heb je nog geen webshop zodat klanten bij je kunnen bestellen? Neem dan ff contact op! Zelfs met een gratis Google Forms bestelformulier kom je een heel eind en dat is zo gemaakt! Shopify kan ook maar vergt meer tijd, heb je later ook wel weer wat aan.
I’ve been waiting for a good reason to do so, but now that my beans are gone, there are no visitors scheduled to arrive anytime soon and I really don’t enjoy local supermarket coffee, I had to find a new supplier.
Now, from my experience at the Marketgarden supermarket, I know that Carib Bean Company in Antigua is a good, local and reliable supplier. They make fabulous blends that have stood the test of time, roast on-demand and deliver via airfreight. Fast, but expensive. So I need an alternative. Maybe it can be achieved cheaper, better coffee or faster?
So I ordered a couple of small 8-12oz sample orders from Amavida in Miami. I use a US mailbox address that can repack multiple orders into one small package and forward that via boat, DHL or Fedex. MyMalls is fast and reliable but also not as cheap as using local shipping companies such as SCS, Tropical or the Mailbox. However, for fresh roasted coffee it must be fast.
The tropical heat and humidity kill off roasted beans in 15 min when left exposed to air!
So Amavida it is and I’m very excited! They were awarded “Roaster of the Year” in 2018, so my expectations are very high! I hope they equal or surpass my experience with the Ethiopia single origin from Evermore in Rotterdam!
The story continues…
After choosing two US coffee roasters from the short list of four for Double Dutch Café, we have entered the next stage.
- Amavida.com (Florida, US)
- Batdorfcoffee.com (Washington, US)
- Carib Bean Coffee Company (Antigua, WI)
We’re ordering samples from all suppliers, determine how the ordering process works and how we must handle the logistics of getting the fresh roasted beans from a warehouse in Miami to Sint Maarten.
I trust they will deliver them appropriately to Miami but the warehouse must store them in a temperature controlled environment and ship them in the same way.
It will be learning experience for everyone on our side, because coffee is usually not treated with this much care.
As for Carib Bean Coffee in Antigua, they roast locally and import beans to their island, as far as I know.
Update: the Hurricane Brew (medium/dark roast) is a mix of 5 different Arabica beans and came out splendidly on our espresso machine! It came via airmail, which is expensive, but _fast_!
Getting good coffee on this island is a challenge. That’s funny because we live right in the middle of the some of the world’s best coffee countries. So you’d expect a larger selection. Sadly, the opposite is true.
While every coffee selling business here seems to focus on making coffee from cups (Nespresso, Lavazza, Illy) and the local population mostly used to and stuck with cheap, large scale, commercially produced filter coffee such as Santa Domingo ground coffee, very few places have whole coffee beans to begin with.
When I started to make an inventory of the equipment needed to create a Specialty Coffee shop on St Maarten, I immediately noticed the lack of good grinders & espresso machines, long delivery times, uncertain product availability and total lack of good single-origin coffee beans. Malongo, a large French roaster with a presence on the French side of this island (Saint Martin) was the exception. Sadly, their stock was low, the beans old (almost a year after packaging date, no roast date mentioned anywhere!) and the selection limited to four countries: Brasil, Colombia, Rwanda, Ethiopia. And they had just survived hurricane Irma as well but I have no idea how good or bad their stock survived that storm.
So I am doing what everybody here does: if you can’t get it here and people won’t get it for you, you find and buy it yourself in the US, send it to Miami, FL, and have it shipped here by one of the several shipping companies that visit the island at least twice week. Here’s the list of roasters that I’ve contacted and who’ve replied to me they’d be interested in selling us beans at wholesale:
- DogWood Coffee, Minneapolis, MN
- Amavida, Santa Rosa Beach, FL
- Batdorf & Bronson, Olympia, WA
I’m very excited to make a choice from these wonderful companies, their coffee descriptions online give me a lot of confidence that they are indeed “Third Wave Roasters” and take quality seriously. I still have an order coming in from Malongo that will last a while, but their orders take 2 months to fulfill and that’s simply too long. I contacted Smit & Dorlas in Curaçao but they don’t have single origin coffees, only blends – but can ship these in 2 weeks -, and blends are not what I want to serve in the Double Dutch Cafe for black coffees, if at all possible.
I will blog about the progress that I’m making in getting serious coffee to St Maarten and having people take coffee more seriously on this island. 🙂
I was surprised with a package from the Netherlands that someone forwarded for me. It contained the hand grinder I had ordered a while ago but was delivered after friends had already flown back to Sint Maarten.
Now I can take my Hario V60 or Aeropress anywhere and also grind whole beans on demand. This comes in handy because I’m always scouting for a cool great new pound of coffee beans and the lack of a portable grinder limited what I could source.
Im really happy with this product of a Kickstarter campaign. It’s solid, accurate, easy to use and clean and for a good price.
For the Market Cafe in Simpson Bay I’m still looking for an espresso bean to use and this way I can try a few samples without taking apart my commercial grinders for it!
Got a delivery of fresh beans through a friend who brought coffee from Man met bril koffie in Rotterdam. Bourbon variety of the Arabica beans. One of the best. Can’t wait to make a fresh brew with this!
No Pressure Coffee 